The Old Man and the Sea: Papa’s Cruciform Writing
Jun 23rd, 2009 by John
“Ay,” he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.”
I still am not convinced that Ernest Hemngway meant no intended allusions to Jesus Christ in the character of “the old man,” Santiago, in The Old Man and the Sea. What are we to make of the quote above? Just two pages before this sentence (in my edition), Hemingway has Santiago ruminating about sin. Besides I think it is a sin [not to hope]. Do not think about sin, he thought. There is enough problems without sin.
Again, imagine the cross-shaped mast and sail as you read: He unstepped the mast and furled the sail and tied it. The he shouldered the mast and started to climb. It was then he knew the depth of his tiredness. He stopped and looked back and saw the reflection from the street light the great tail of the fish standing well up behind the skiff’s stern…. He started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. How can this not be an intended allusion to Jesus falling beneath his cross on the Via Delorosa?
At some point I am going to catalogue every overtly Christian/Catholic reference in the story. The number of them is overwhelming. Here are a few more: Santiago is out too far in the Gulf for three days and three nights. Santiago is happy to think that San Pedro [Saint Peter] was a fisherman as was the father of the great [Joe] DiMaggio. Not too mention Santiago’s promise to God of many “Hail Marys and Our Fathers.”
Just like Calvinists and Armininians, classical determinists and open theists, complementarians and egalitarians, KJV-only and TNIVers, so there are those who believe Hemingway intended no comparison between Santiago and Jesus Christ and others, like myself, who hold to Hemingway’s very intended allusions to Jesus Christ (even though Hemingway declared that he had no symbolism in mind).
What do you think?
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Hemingway grew up in a very Christianized culture with a dominant strict Protestant mother. Although I fall a generation or two behind him, I can readily identify. My very formative years were in the late 50s and early 60s. In those days I too had a Reformed upbringing, but had no interest in ‘following the Lord’. However, the culture was very Christianized, and even my most pagan peers knew basic Christian thought. So, to me it stands to reason that an accomplished author of the day would use concepts and terms that the culture could immediately identify with, whether he believed in them or not. Bottom line: I agree with you. I think Hemingway definately had Christian symbolism in mind. He wanted to connect with his public.
I could matrix the story of Christ from a Rilo Kiley song, doesn’t mean they intended it to be there. Authors write with intended imagery all the time. Readers see what they want to see in stories all the time. Which is it in this case? Can’t know. We can’t be in Hemingway’s head and know what he intended. The best we got is what he tells us was going on in his head and even then, he could be lying to us (and for good reason; writing a story sometimes makes you a little bit too vulnerable. He might have been protecting himself and his beliefs.) What you can say for sure is that you see the imagery, the parallels. As for what Hemingway intended… To look at the parallels and say, “Ah, he had to have meant this as a picture of Christ,” you’d have to assume his mind works the same way as yours; that you can see the end product and reverse engineer it back to his intentions. “No one knows a man but the spirit within the man” or something. I think that’s from the Bible.
The last three nights I’ve been rereading “The Old Man and the Sea” before bed; I’d been meaning to for a while. Last night as I was reading the last third my mind kept going to the thoughts in your post. I have no doubt that to some extent Hemingway meant for Santiago to be a Christ type, regardless of what he said.
What struck me as I was turning the last page of the book was what this said about Hemingway’s view of Christ: Christ is a failure. Santiago, through a mixture of pride and desperation, goes too far and suffers three days in the ocean. Through a long, painful ordeal he captures the fish, which represents to Santiago salvation from hunger and want. However, Santiago fails to bring salvation back to the land of the living. He returns to where he came from, blooded and broken, with nothing to show for his effort. Santiago’s spirit is broken and he is unable even to pray. This is a heartbreaking view of Christ.
The other metaphor that caught hold in my brain was the idea of the fish representing Heaven (the Kingdom of God). Santiago catches a fish of great value (pearl of great price), but is unable to hold onto it. In the end the Kingdom of God, which Santiago has beaten his body into submission in order to obtain, is worthless.
Overall “The Old Man and the Sea” paints a very grim picture of Hemingway’s spiritual outlook.